


fool on the run

by Glyphhunter



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Confessions, Disaster Gay Shiro (Voltron), Eavesdropping, Fluff, M/M, Minor Allura/Lance (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07, Pre-Relationship, Sheith Prompt Party 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 17:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glyphhunter/pseuds/Glyphhunter
Summary: Maybe it's the way Lance’s voice is, or even just how quiet the room is, but it carries. Must be how he heard him in the first place. It drifts above the soft hum of the AC and Shiro considers that maybe he should've made himself known. Because the sentence that comes out of Lance’s mouth is not meant for his ears.“Keith,” he says, and Shiro is hooked just from that but it isn't everything. “And the lengths he'll go to for Shiro,” Lance continues and Shiro knows, somewhere along the line, he’s made a mistake. He should’ve answered, gotten up, done something. Hell, he should’ve chosen a whole new room altogether to sit in beforehand. Maybe he could’ve avoided this.





	fool on the run

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from the Sheith Prompt Party: "Do you think it's normal?" Shiro looks up from what he was reading. "What is?" "The lengths Keith will go through for you," came the answer. Or: How Shiro finally understood how Keith felt, and how this helped him understand his own feelings for Keith.
> 
> Took a few creative liberties and changed a few things but I think you'll like it, anonymous prompter ;)

“Do you think it's normal?” Lance is quiet when he speaks, so quiet that Shiro almost doesn't hear him. He’s across the room, just barely visible over the back of one of the couches where he's reclined. When he got there, Shiro’s not sure. He, quite honestly, didn't notice him come in.

He lowers his tablet, inquiry on his lips, but Hunk replies before he can. A simple, “What is?” that rises from the other end of the couch, and Shiro realizes the question wasn't meant for him.

They both probably had the same idea he did: find somewhere quiet away from the media and the fussing and lay low for a while. They all just happened to find the same room. Shiro sinks deeper into his chair, a squishy thing that he's going to feel as soon as he stands, and tries to give them their privacy.

Maybe it's the way Lance’s voice is, or even just how quiet the room is, but it carries. Must be how he heard him in the first place. It drifts above the soft hum of the AC and Shiro considers that maybe he should've made himself known. Because the sentence that comes out of Lance’s mouth is not meant for his ears.

“Keith,” he says, and Shiro is hooked just from that but it’s not everything. “And the lengths he'll go to for Shiro,” Lance continues and Shiro knows, somewhere along the line, he’s made a mistake. He should’ve answered, gotten up, done something. Hell, he should’ve chosen a whole new room altogether to sit in beforehand. Maybe he could’ve avoided this.

This _probably_ isn't a conversation he should be here for, but now that he’s heard, there’s really no going back. His focus latches on to the topic and the article he was reading quickly becomes obsolete.

In the privacy of his own mind, he'll admit that Lance makes a good point. It's something that Shiro also thought about, especially during his time in the Astral Plane, but he didn't have much of a point of reference to go off of then. Still doesn't, really. He’s long since determined that it's just a Keith thing and left it at that.

But Hunk lets out a thoughtful hum, and on its own, Shiro would usually think nothing of it. He hears it often enough when Hunk and Pidge are brainstorming. But this is Hunk with _Lance_ and that always seems to bring out a side of him that Shiro doesn’t expect. That alone has him bracing his shoulders and he finds himself holding his breath.

“Yeah,” Hunk says after a pause that seems like an eternity and an instant all at once. It comes out relaxed. Simple. Like it was the answer to a quiz he didn’t need to study for but did so anyway. All thoughts come to a screeching halt. Shiro blinks blankly at his tablet.

“Yeah?” Lance questions, echoing Shiro’s own thoughts but not nearly encompassing the crashing spiral they’ve spun into.

Keith’s actions were normal?

“Yeah,” Hunk repeats, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he didn’t just drop the biggest bombshell on Shiro’s short and hectic life, intentional or not. He waits for him to continue, waits for some sort of sign that would bring everything back into some semblance of order. But Hunk stays quiet. _Lance_ is quiet.

The hum of the AC is deafening.

“I’m gonna need some elaboration on that, bud, ‘cause from where I’m looking, Keith’s an outlier.” Lance breaks the silence, once again following Shiro’s train of thought – thought being, Keith is Keith and nothing about him is standard – and he couldn’t be more grateful. Sure, he and Lance have differing points of view on the topic of Keith being Keith but both of them can agree that he’s not that.

Standard, that is. Keith is anything but.

“Not really,” Hunk says lightly, continuing to be completely contrary. “We’d all go to extremes to protect the people we love, right? If that’s what it takes?” His word choice alone nearly has Shiro peeking up over the edge of his chair. “I really don’t think it’s much of a stretch to do what Keith’s done.”

“... Okay.” Lance says it slowly, and Shiro can almost _feel_ the slow nod that accompanies it. He can tell, and Hunk can tell, judging by the sigh through his nose, that Lance is already half lost. There’s a shift, one, or both of them probably, sitting up.

“Take Pidge for example,” Hunk says. “She never gave up on looking for her family, even when it looked like we were too late. She didn’t let anyone tell her, ‘No’.” There’s a pause where Hunk lets the words sink in. Shiro waits with bated breath. “Then there’s me,” he continues softly, “when I went to rescue my parents.”

“Yeah, okay, but that’s family,” Lance points out. “Keith– Shiro’s not–” He flounders and Shiro can imagine his hands flailing in the air as he tries to gesture his meaning. Shiro doesn’t even need it. He knows what Lance is getting at.

There’s no blood that ties him to Keith.

“Look at it this way.” Hunk sounds… Tired. Lance huffs. “Let’s say, 5 years down the road, you and Allura–”

“What!?”

“–are as tight as can be. You’d do anything for each other.”

“Allura and I aren’t–!”

“Work with me here.” There’s a click – Lance’s jaw snapping shut – and Shiro can only imagine the look on Hunk’s face. “Hypothetical.” He starts again. “You and Allura. 5 years. Something happens to her and it doesn’t look like she’s coming back. We’ve all pretty much given up. _Coran,_ has given up. But you know, somehow, that she’s still alive and can be saved. Would you give up?”

“I find it hard to believe that Coran–”

_“Hypothetical,”_ Hunk presses and Lance falls silent. Shiro’s lungs are burning – he's still holding his breath – and he slowly forces himself to let it go. It’s a loaded question, not one that anyone wants to think about, for sure. But Shiro knows for a fact that Keith already has. He faced this decision and turned his back on giving up right from the start.

It’s the only reason Shiro’s still here.

He takes a breath. Careful, measured, anything to keep Hunk and Lance from noticing. A question forms, bubbles out of the depths of his thoughts, and presents itself like a cat laying claim to his lap. Calm, impossible to ignore, and the easiest to accept. A scenario that he's already considered in passing in the midst of everything else that was happening.

If roles were reversed, would Shiro do the same for Keith? It should scare him, the fact that it's so easy to answer.

“No,” Lance says finally, whisper soft. “If I knew there was even the slightest chance, then no. I would do anything.” There's another pause, short – a breath, really – before Lance sighs heavily.

He would do anything.

_Shiro_ would do anything.

He blinks, staring dumbly at the far wall as he tries to regain sense. A restless energy fills him on his next breath. His fingers are tingling.

He needs to find Keith.

“Do you think they know?” Lance asks. Shiro tenses in his chair. “That they love each other,” he clarifies not even a second later and Shiro cannot believe his life. All sense has left the building. There’s no going back from this point whatsoever.

“Objectively, sure,” Hunk comments, like it’s the _fucking weather._ “But in the sense that we see it? Probably not.”

_Probably._

The tablet slips out of his senseless fingers, set on a damning course for the floor. He watches it drop in slow motion, already reaching, but the chair holds him back. Soft as it is, it swallows any attempt to lunge within its cushions.

He brushes the corner with his fingertips and the result puts him on crashing display to the rest of the room. It flips and spins, boosted by his interference towards the far wall. The clatter is jarring.

His ears are already burning, spreading quickly to the rest of him as he scrambles after it. He barely catches a glimpse of Hunk and Lance out of the corner of his eye before shame has him looking away. They're watching him, there's no way they're not. He can feel their eyes on him as he bolts for the door, a disaster in motion towards no man's land _(who gave this room only one exit?)._

His hip bumps one of the chairs at the table in the middle of the room. He tries to keep it upright, but momentum takes it from him and he's Done. He's leaving. He's getting out before anyone else has to bear witness.

He doesn't know if it's a blessing or a curse that neither of them say anything as he flees. It's certainly feels like a blessing when he doesn't come across anyone in the halls. Until he reaches his rooms and finds Keith outside his door. The heat, slowly worked off on the way over, comes back with a vengeance and he’s doomed. There’s no escape.

“Shiro?” Keith looks at him, head tilted in curiosity but his brow creases with concern. Shiro watches the path his eyes take – over his face, down to his hands, and back – and knows there’s no getting out.

He gives up. There’s no saving this. There’s no saving _him._

He takes a deep breath and everything settles. In the end, it’s easy. As simple as the weather.

_“I love you.”_


End file.
